Clearing the briars

Once upon a time, a woman lived in a house set apart from the city. In her childhood, she spent much time blazing trails to the many destinations she liked to visit.

One night, a thicket of briars sprang up in the field around her house. Journeys to her favorite places became more difficult, and new trails almost impossible. After a time, she learned to walk over the briars, although she often returned home with bloody feet. She bore the pain, and learned how to work around it. Often times she thought about clearing the thicket, but the task seemed insurmountable as the years passed; the briars grew even more densely, and seemed to better support her footsteps.

One day, the women started to notice that the briars grew so tall in one area that it blocked the sun from warming the house. This was in a direction that the woman had never journeyed, although many had told her of the delights the trail held.

The woman pondered and considered. She called out to various gardeners for help to clear the briars. They heard her pleas. They were not able to enter the briar to help with the physical work, but shouted encouragement and ideas, and flung scythes and boots over the briar to aid her.

The work was painful and difficult, eventhough the woman started in the sparse areas of the briar. Dutifully she hacked away at the unyielding tangle of thorns. Time passed. One day she found she had cleared enough to see the fertile ground that lay at the bottom. She dug her hands into the rich moist earth. It gave her great joy.

And so she continues her work to clear the briars. Some days she is despondent at the amount of work still to be done, and feels cold in the shadow of the tall portion. Some days she is defiant and travels over the briar, then bemoans her foolishness while she binds her feet in the evening. And some days she is remarkably successful and glories in the work done thus far, envisioning the fruits that may eventually come from the land.